


Ascension

by eternaleponine



Series: Fleimkepa [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (up to a point anyway), Angst with a Happy Ending, Assisted Suicide, Canon Compliant, Clexa Week 2017, F/F, Post Season 3, Sorry Not Sorry, for values of happy that are kind of super depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 12:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10099832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Sequel toFleimkepa.Clarke has done as much as she can do to save their people from what is coming, and she has nothing more to give.  She asks Raven to make good on her promise to help her find her way back to Lexa.





	

People were going to die. 

They'd done the best that they could, saved as many as they could in the time that they had, but the truth was that people were going to die. There had been no way to get the serum to everyone, and there was no guarantee that it would work for all of them. But they'd tried, and that had to count for something, right?

People were going to die, but some people – maybe, hopefully – would live. 

That had to count for something.

Her mother had tried to get her to take the serum, but she'd refused. She needed the Nightblood, but she refused to waste a permanent solution on a temporary problem. Let someone else take her place, let someone else have her chance. She didn't need it.

She'd found another way.

* * *

There had been some part of her that had hoped that Clarke would reconsider. That somehow in helping to find an answer to how to survive the unsurvivable, she would decide that maybe life was worth living after all. 

And as things had started to come together, Raven had actually seen a spark in her eyes. When they discovered that Nightblood could help protect against radiation, and that they could manufacture a serum that would effectively make everyone Nightbloods, she had seen the first signs of life and hope in Clarke since Lexa's death. 

Now the last dose had been delivered, and they were preparing for the storm. Battening down the hatches, attending to their stores... they were doing everything that they could to give as many people a chance at surviving as they could. The human race would continue, and that was in no small part thanks to Clarke.

Clarke, who was actually smiling. But it wasn't the smile of someone who was hopeful for the future. It was the smile of someone who was looking at what they'd done and was pleased with it, because now, finally, they could let it go. 

What was it the Grounders said?

Her fight was over.

* * *

"You'll need to return everything back to the medical supplies after," Clarke said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Raven said, but Clarke was pretty sure that it wasn't. Not really. What she was asking Raven to do... It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair, but it had been Raven who had offered. It had been Raven who had said that when the time came, she would help. And she was true to her word. She was here.

"Did you say goodbye to your mother?" Raven asked. 

"No," Clarke said. "I couldn't. I can't."

Because she knew that her mother would try to stop her. She knew that her mother wouldn't understand. She'd just kept going after Dad died, and she'd even found love again, or at least some reasonable approximation thereof. It was good. It would help get her through the grief. She hoped, anyway. 

"She's—" Raven started, but she didn't finish. It didn't matter. Clarke knew what she was going to say. That she would be devastated. That she would blame herself. For what? For not stopping her? For not being there? 

"I told her I love her," Clarke said. "It was the best I could do."

Raven sighed. "Okay," she said, but of course it wasn't. It was just another mess for her to have to clean up, shattered pieces for her to try to glue back together in the wake of Clarke's destruction. 

Because that's what she did. She destroyed things. She was _Wanheda_ , Commander of Death... but this would be the last one, she hoped. The last one that she was responsible for. And those that were left behind... some of them might grieve, but others would be relieved, she was sure. After everything she'd done, they would be relieved that she wasn't around anymore to do more, and worse. They would be relieved to know that she had finally paid the price for all the pain that she'd caused.

"Are you ready?"

* * *

Raven asked the question, but she wasn't sure that _she_ was ready. How could she have ever said that she would do this? 

"Almost," Clarke said. "She'll be here soon."

"Who—" Raven started to ask, but before she could answer the door opened and then closed again, and she saw Luna standing there, looking somber but determined. She blinked, surprised, but then why should she be? If anyone else could understand what Clarke was going through, wouldn't it be Luna? The girl who could have been Commander but wasn't, who had only ever wanted peace and who had lost everything she had built, everyone she had cared about. She'd even given up an actual part of herself, letting them take her blood to study in the hopes that it would help those who were still left to survive. 

"I didn't take the serum," Clarke explained. "It worked with Ontari... it should work now, at least long enough to..." Her voice trailed off, but she didn't need to finish. At least long enough to get the Flame into her body. At least long enough for her to find Lexa... if Lexa was there to be found. They didn't know for sure, and there was a chance that Raven was wrong and that ALIE 2.0 had also been destroyed with the City of Light. 

If that was true...

"It's okay," Clarke said, reaching out and touching her hand. "Raven, it's okay."

If it was true, Clarke was still ready to go. She was ready for all of this to be over. Because living... she wasn't living. She was only – would only – be surviving. And didn't she deserve better than that?

And hadn't she earned that? 

"Tell me what you need me to do."

* * *

Clarke walked Raven through setting up the transfusion. It would have been better if her mother had been there, but this was more than she could ask of her. This was more than she should ask of anyone, and maybe she could have found a way to do it alone, but...

... but the truth was she was a coward and she couldn't. She couldn't face this by herself. 

Luna sat beside her and silently offered Raven her arm for the needle and the tubing. With her free hand, she took Clarke's and squeezed. 

"What if I'm wrong?" Clarke asked softly. 

"You're not wrong," Luna told her, and she sounded sure. "You said that she told you that she would always be with you. She will be there."

"What if she thinks I'm giving up before I should? What if she thinks that I haven't done enough, that my people..." She couldn't force the words past the lump in her throat. The possibility that she might do this and that Lexa might reject her... might see her for the coward that she is and change her mind, that she might think that there was still more that Clarke owed to her people... 

_Maybe someday you and I will owe nothing more to our people._

_I hope so._

But what if someday wasn't today?

Luna let go of her hand, but only to put her arm around her, holding Clarke against her as she had held Adria. "You have done everything that you could," she whispered, "for your people and for ours. What there is left to do... there are others to do it. I will make sure of it. You can tell Lexa that. I will fight for your legacy of peace – yours and Lexa's."

"I don't want you to have to fight," Clarke said. 

"Metaphorical fight," Luna said, smiling at her. 

"You don't think I'm a coward?" Clarke asked, feeling like a child, but she needed to know. 

"I think that you deserve peace," Luna replied, which didn't really answer the question, not exactly. "I think that you have done as much as you can, given all that you have to give. I may not always agree with the choices that you have made, but I understand the sacrifices you have made in making them. I think that a person can only carry a burden for so long, that there is only so much grief you can swallow, and you have had enough and more than enough." She turned her head and pressed a kiss to Clarke's hair, an unexpected gesture that brought tears to Clarke's eyes. When she spoke again, it was in whispered Trigedasleng. "I think that you deserve peace, and that you will never find it here. I don't think they will ever let you find it here."

* * *

Raven started the flow of blood – black as tar – through the tubes, and watched as Clarke closed her eyes, her head tipped onto Luna's shoulder. She reached out and took her hand, squeezing it, and then prepared the Flame. 

Luna brushed Clarke's hair from the back of her neck, and Raven held the chip between her fingers. " _Ascende Superius,_ " she said, and breathed a sigh of relief when it activated. She watched it burrow beneath Clarke's skin and disappear.

"How will we know?" she asked Luna. "I tried to link into it, to regain access to the code, but I couldn't get it to work no matter what I did. I could hack the City of Light, but not this. Not wherever she – they – are."

"We will know," Luna said. 

Raven watched Clarke's face, searching for some sort of change, some indication that she had found what she was looking for. Seconds passed, and she was starting to give up hope when she felt it. Clarke's grasp on her hand loosened. Her entire body relaxed. And then tears began to trickle from the corners of her eyes. 

"Wait," she said when Luna pulled a small bottle from her pocket. "If her blood is flowing into you and you give her that..." 

"It does not poison the blood," Luna said. "It will be all right." She handed the bottle to Raven, shifting Clarke against her so that Raven could let a drop fall onto her tongue.

"One more," Luna said. "Let it be quick."

Raven looked at Luna, then back at Clarke. She let one more drop fall, and then set the bottle down and took Clarke's face between her hands. She was still breathing, and Raven hoped that she could still hear as she whispered, "In peace may you leave the shore. In love may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground. May we meet again." 

" _Kom woda ‘so gyon op, gon woda ‘so kom daun_ ," Luna murmured. 

Raven's tears mingled with Clarke's on her cheeks, and she felt it when her breathing stopped, felt her heart stop beating, and she swallowed a sob even as she felt Luna's hand on her head, trying to give what comfort she could.

* * *

Clarke opened her eyes to brightness, to sunshine like they hadn't seen in weeks, and when she was finally able to see beyond the glare, to a face that she had seen in all of her dreams and nightmares for the last few months. 

"Lexa..." 

"Clarke."

She was smiling as she held out her hands. Clarke took them, tumbling into Lexa's arms and holding her tight, and it didn't hurt. There was no pain in the City of Light, and if this wasn't that... there was no pain here anyway, because finally, finally their someday was today. 

" _Oso gonplei ste odon,_ " Lexa said, her lips brushing Clarke's. "Welcome home."


End file.
